Are traditions just a product of idiosyncratic events or is there something deeper they reflect? Let's first see an example of how traditions can come to be.
Chimpanzees from two separate groups were included in a scientific experiment. One chimpanzee from the first group was trained to put orange tokens in a bucket and one chimpanzee from the second group was trained to put them in a pipe. Upon completion, the chimpanzee received fruit as a reward. Other chimpanzees in the respective groups learned by observing. Chimpanzees were then rewarded with fruit no matter whether they put the token in the bucket or the pipe. Yet, the first group tended to stick to the bucket and the second to the pipe.
Traditions are transmitted between individuals in social animals.
While growing up, I had the impulse to reject traditions because they seemed irrational. That may very well be the case, but it's wise to treat each tradition as a Chesterton fence:
There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away." To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: "If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it."
Accepting traditions blindly could be just as bad. Let us understand the utility of traditions.
Utility of traditions
Encoded wisdom
The Cassava root is a popular staple food originating from South America. Over centuries, the natives of the region had developed elaborate processes of preparing it. The traditional methods of preparing Cassava served to remove toxic ingredients. As explorers spread the plant to Europe and Africa, some people got poisoning, because they just assumed the root can be prepared like a potato.
This is an example of a tradition that encodes wisdom accumulated over generations. People may not know the rationale behind the tradition, but it is still useful to preserve.
Familiarity
On the 24th of december bulgarians prepare a dinner table with non-meat dishes[1]. There is always a circular bread, which typically has a coin and a small tree branch in it. Being "lucky" to get one of those can be a fun activity for children. I really like some of the common dishes people prepare that day. The origin of this tradition is in orthodox christianity.
Humans like what is familiar. It can bring good memories, create a feeling of comfort, etc. A tradition can provide the base for a fun activity for people to organize around.
Coordination
People like to party, but may disagree on when and where. One way to coordinate on this is to establish a tradition, such as "new year's eve" or "birthday celebration". Having a designated date and/or place provides a Schelling point. More generally, appeal to tradition is one possible way to resolve a disagreement about what action to take[2].
In the legal system, judges could look at precedents not necessarily because past decisions were optimal, but because they are a shared reference point and provide predictability.
In diplomatic negotiations, managing reputation is key. Established protocol is essential to avoid unnecessary status contests without either side appearing to concede.
Group identity
Humans have a natural desire to feel part of a group, which requires a criterion to group around. Shared memories, experiences or knowledge can provide a base for a group to form[3].
Questioning traditions
There are reasons to question traditions and I'm going to explore some.
Once a tradition forms, pressure from family or society could make it endure over time. This would be fine if all traditions formed for good reasons and if those reasons continued to be good over time. Often this is not the case.
Bad epistemology
People are notoriously bad at epistemology, as explored by the huge literature on biases. A tradition could take hold because of a coincidence or because people misinterpret causality.
The Aztecs had a tradition of human sacrifice to the god of rain Tlaloc, in order to bring rain. Near the end of the dry season, sacrifices were ramped up. If no rain came, this was interpreted as more sacrifices necessary. Rain always came eventually, which reinforced the belief and the tradition.
The Fore tribe in Papua New Guinea developed a funerary tradition of eating the body of deceased relatives to honor them. They believed that the life force of the person would be wasted once buried and found the idea of the body being eaten by worms and maggots repulsive. This eventually led to the spread of a prion disease, resulting in numerous deaths.
A lot of traditional medicine is the result of bad epistemology.
Cultural drift
Clothing originally served for protection and comfort - against cold, rain, sunburns, insects, etc. Over time, clothing took on cultural significance and was being transmitted as a tradition. It started being used to show group identity and status (e.g. historically nudity was often associated with poverty). Covering reproductive organs was driven by the vulnerability and sensitivity of those body parts and eventually became associated with morality through religious practices. Over time, the resulting clothing traditions became more rigid and divorced from the context. This resulted in arbitrary rules, such as swimsuit vs underwear on the beach or male vs female nipples.
A tradition that once served a purpose can drift to become something unrecognizable and inconsistent.
Technology
As the world changes and humans develop new technology, traditions can become outdated.
Some societies consider sex before marriage a taboo. Historically, this had good justification - sex resulted in pregnancy and the tradition served to enforce that a man would commit to taking care of the child. It also helped limit STDs. Today, this tradition has been largely superseded by a combination of education, contraception, and STD tests and drugs.
Suboptimality
A tradition may serve a purpose, but this doesn't mean it's the optimal way to solve the given problem.
Humans have traditionally used salt to preserve food. While this technique works (salt creates osmotic pressure which dehydrates microorganisms and stops their growth), it degrades the nutritional profile of the food. It also requires an additional step of reducing salt content (e.g. by soaking the meat in water) before eating. Still, the salt content remains high and can cause cardiovascular issues.
The Identification problem
I think most people don't question traditions sufficiently and many traditions are only kept alive by social pressure. As individuals and as a society, it is useful to examine traditions decide what to keep and what to reject. The difficult part is how to distinguish traditions with real utility from the rest.
We can think of a tradition as a hypothesis that some particular behavior or ritual has desirable causal effects. Testing all hypotheses to disprove them is impractical for a number of reasons. Instead, we can try to understand how the tradition arose and spread. Something which appeared and spread by accident or because of a well-established bias is incredibly unlikely to have positive utility by chance. In other words, if we see no signal and the noise is enough to explain the history, it is reasonable to reject the hypothesis. A good rule of thumb is to look for convergent traditions across cultures. If a tradition is present in all relevant cultures, that's probably not a coincidence. If it's notably lacking in some relevant cultures, that's a good argument to be skeptical of it.
A more general lesson is that we should be striving to improve our epistemics, for example, by learning from history.
One thing to keep in mind - we should weigh the downsides of a false negative - e.g. when it comes to something you eat, maybe keeping the tradition would cause a minor inconvenience while wrongfully rejecting it could lead to serious health issues.
There are other related traditions on the same date which I won't discuss in detail, because I find them less appealing and because I'm not that familiar with them.
epistemic status: exploratory
Are traditions just a product of idiosyncratic events or is there something deeper they reflect? Let's first see an example of how traditions can come to be.
Traditions are transmitted between individuals in social animals.
While growing up, I had the impulse to reject traditions because they seemed irrational. That may very well be the case, but it's wise to treat each tradition as a Chesterton fence:
Accepting traditions blindly could be just as bad. Let us understand the utility of traditions.
Utility of traditions
Encoded wisdom
The Cassava root is a popular staple food originating from South America. Over centuries, the natives of the region had developed elaborate processes of preparing it. The traditional methods of preparing Cassava served to remove toxic ingredients. As explorers spread the plant to Europe and Africa, some people got poisoning, because they just assumed the root can be prepared like a potato.
This is an example of a tradition that encodes wisdom accumulated over generations. People may not know the rationale behind the tradition, but it is still useful to preserve.
Familiarity
On the 24th of december bulgarians prepare a dinner table with non-meat dishes[1]. There is always a circular bread, which typically has a coin and a small tree branch in it. Being "lucky" to get one of those can be a fun activity for children. I really like some of the common dishes people prepare that day. The origin of this tradition is in orthodox christianity.
Humans like what is familiar. It can bring good memories, create a feeling of comfort, etc. A tradition can provide the base for a fun activity for people to organize around.
Coordination
People like to party, but may disagree on when and where. One way to coordinate on this is to establish a tradition, such as "new year's eve" or "birthday celebration". Having a designated date and/or place provides a Schelling point. More generally, appeal to tradition is one possible way to resolve a disagreement about what action to take[2].
In the legal system, judges could look at precedents not necessarily because past decisions were optimal, but because they are a shared reference point and provide predictability.
In diplomatic negotiations, managing reputation is key. Established protocol is essential to avoid unnecessary status contests without either side appearing to concede.
Group identity
Humans have a natural desire to feel part of a group, which requires a criterion to group around. Shared memories, experiences or knowledge can provide a base for a group to form[3].
Questioning traditions
There are reasons to question traditions and I'm going to explore some.
Once a tradition forms, pressure from family or society could make it endure over time. This would be fine if all traditions formed for good reasons and if those reasons continued to be good over time. Often this is not the case.
Bad epistemology
People are notoriously bad at epistemology, as explored by the huge literature on biases. A tradition could take hold because of a coincidence or because people misinterpret causality.
The Aztecs had a tradition of human sacrifice to the god of rain Tlaloc, in order to bring rain. Near the end of the dry season, sacrifices were ramped up. If no rain came, this was interpreted as more sacrifices necessary. Rain always came eventually, which reinforced the belief and the tradition.
The Fore tribe in Papua New Guinea developed a funerary tradition of eating the body of deceased relatives to honor them. They believed that the life force of the person would be wasted once buried and found the idea of the body being eaten by worms and maggots repulsive. This eventually led to the spread of a prion disease, resulting in numerous deaths.
A lot of traditional medicine is the result of bad epistemology.
Cultural drift
Clothing originally served for protection and comfort - against cold, rain, sunburns, insects, etc. Over time, clothing took on cultural significance and was being transmitted as a tradition. It started being used to show group identity and status (e.g. historically nudity was often associated with poverty). Covering reproductive organs was driven by the vulnerability and sensitivity of those body parts and eventually became associated with morality through religious practices. Over time, the resulting clothing traditions became more rigid and divorced from the context. This resulted in arbitrary rules, such as swimsuit vs underwear on the beach or male vs female nipples.
A tradition that once served a purpose can drift to become something unrecognizable and inconsistent.
Technology
As the world changes and humans develop new technology, traditions can become outdated.
Some societies consider sex before marriage a taboo. Historically, this had good justification - sex resulted in pregnancy and the tradition served to enforce that a man would commit to taking care of the child. It also helped limit STDs. Today, this tradition has been largely superseded by a combination of education, contraception, and STD tests and drugs.
Suboptimality
A tradition may serve a purpose, but this doesn't mean it's the optimal way to solve the given problem.
Humans have traditionally used salt to preserve food. While this technique works (salt creates osmotic pressure which dehydrates microorganisms and stops their growth), it degrades the nutritional profile of the food. It also requires an additional step of reducing salt content (e.g. by soaking the meat in water) before eating. Still, the salt content remains high and can cause cardiovascular issues.
The Identification problem
I think most people don't question traditions sufficiently and many traditions are only kept alive by social pressure. As individuals and as a society, it is useful to examine traditions decide what to keep and what to reject. The difficult part is how to distinguish traditions with real utility from the rest.
We can think of a tradition as a hypothesis that some particular behavior or ritual has desirable causal effects. Testing all hypotheses to disprove them is impractical for a number of reasons. Instead, we can try to understand how the tradition arose and spread. Something which appeared and spread by accident or because of a well-established bias is incredibly unlikely to have positive utility by chance. In other words, if we see no signal and the noise is enough to explain the history, it is reasonable to reject the hypothesis. A good rule of thumb is to look for convergent traditions across cultures. If a tradition is present in all relevant cultures, that's probably not a coincidence. If it's notably lacking in some relevant cultures, that's a good argument to be skeptical of it.
A more general lesson is that we should be striving to improve our epistemics, for example, by learning from history.
One thing to keep in mind - we should weigh the downsides of a false negative - e.g. when it comes to something you eat, maybe keeping the tradition would cause a minor inconvenience while wrongfully rejecting it could lead to serious health issues.
There are other related traditions on the same date which I won't discuss in detail, because I find them less appealing and because I'm not that familiar with them.
Yes, appeal to tradition could be a logical fallacy, but not necessarily.
Some counterproductive social dynamics stem from dividing people into groups. That's an orthogonal question that I'm not going to discuss here.